


strength and love and touch

by apollothyme



Series: lungs constricting, sweetness overwhelming me [1]
Category: One Piece
Genre: Anxiety Disorder, Drowning, First Kiss, M/M, Mouth-to-Mouth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-07
Updated: 2020-07-07
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:33:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25124722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apollothyme/pseuds/apollothyme
Summary: So Sanji learns how to cook and he learns how to fight and he thinks he’s worthy of life, as long as he can do these things. As long as he can feed and protect others, he can live, which is why it’s rather upsetting when he shatters his back into a thousand pieces and learns he can no longer do either.
Relationships: Monkey D. Luffy/Vinsmoke Sanji
Series: lungs constricting, sweetness overwhelming me [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1930864
Comments: 30
Kudos: 256





	strength and love and touch

> in the evenings it’s when i feel most  
> unlovable — aware of the broken thing i am.  
>    
> my limbs, heavy, move as if not my own  
> and there is a hole inside my chest i cannot fill,  
> but just as my anxiety starts to cage me in  
> you slip into my world with a smile and a hug  
> bleeding warmth into my bones  
>    
> and though i’m not worthy  
> i drink you in, wanting to drown myself  
> in everything you are – strength and love and touch.

When Sanji first meets Luffy, he thinks the man in front of him has got to be the biggest idiot on the planet. A moron with a death wish who has somehow found himself with a ragtag team of wannabe pirates.

Luffy is messy, loud and completely uncaring of what others think, which is just about the antithesis of everything Sanji is, so it’s rather hard to explain why he’s so drawn to him in the first place.

He later discovers it’s because Luffy is just like that — bright, warm and impossible to ignore. For a while, he thinks of Luffy as a flame and he a moth, drawn to his light. But that’s not fair, not on Luffy anyway, because for all he is bright, he does not burn, not on purpose at least.

Luffy shines in a way that’s almost blinding, like the sun is flowing through him. He has death in his fists and life in his smile. Soon, Sanji finds himself thinking _I would follow him anywhere_ and knows it to be true, right to its core.

It’s at the Baratie that he saves Luffy from drowning for the first time.

He’s heard stories from the other guys about what it's like jumping into action before your brain catches up to what you’re doing. Stories about seeing someone in danger and rushing to help before you can second guess yourself. He’s aware that there are people like that, who can move without thinking.

This is not him. Sanji always overthinks.

His mind is a collection of racing thoughts that threaten to choke him from how overwhelming they can be. He’s always thinking, jumping from what to add to the spinach soup to make it creamier, to the woman who left with a smile and an unpaid tab, to the guy who’s fallen in the water — the guy who says he wants Sanji to join his crew, the guy who says he’s gonna become the pirate king, the guy who’s about to fucking drown if Sanji doesn’t _do something_.

So he jumps into the water, graceful, thinking about how to curve his body just right to minimise impact. He pictures all the fish that swim in these waters and how he’s gonna be real fucking pissed if rubber boy gets eaten by any of them. He thinks about what morons they both are and then he saves him, the guy who fell in the water and who Sanji couldn’t leave to his fate, with the smile and the long limbs and all that idiotic conviction. 

He is rewarded for his actions with a large grin once Luffy regains consciousness. Sanji ignores said grin, thinking to himself that it doesn’t mean anything. Luffy is a moron with a death wish and Sanji is stupid for even caring about him.

“Thanks for saving me,” Luffy says while the two of them are still in the water, Sanji swimming them back to the Baratie while Luffy hangs off him like a useless limpet.

“Don’t make it a habit,” he replies, thinking about how his suit is gonna need two washes to get rid of all the salt, if it’s not ruined already, which it probably is from all of the day’s events.

“Whoa!” Luffy yells, twisting and turning in Sanji’s arms even as Sanji’s grip turns into iron. Absolute fucking moron with the death wish of a suicidal limpet. 

“Stop moving, moron. Do you _want_ to drown?” Sanji hisses.

Luffy ignores him, holding onto Sanji’s neck with a firm grip. Sanji can’t help noticing how the texture of Luffy’s skin is different from other people. A little harsher, with less give. When Luffy holds on tight, his grip seems unbreakable, leaving you with nowhere to go. 

“Does this mean you’re going to join my crew?” He asks.

Sanji scoffs. His comment was just one of those things people often said without thinking, but of course this sentiment couldn’t apply to him, not really.

He’s saved from replying by a rope thrown their way. Sanji throws Luffy over one of his shoulders before he begins to climb up, needing both hands free. He doesn’t even realise he could have just tossed Luffy onto the ship and climbed back on his own until they’re both standing on solid wood.

The rest of the day is eventful and chaotic and the most fun Sanji has had in years, possibly even his whole life, if he’s brave enough to admit it. His thoughts don’t even bother him too much for a while, distracted by everything that’s going on.

A few hours later he finds himself sailing away on the Going Merry, Luffy full of joy by his side, acting as if he hadn’t almost died today as well as saved the Baratie from certain doom.

He is careless, Sanji thinks. Careless and carefree.

Sanji is not sure if he’s ever been either, probably wouldn’t know how to be like that even if he tried. Probably.

They sail after Nami, a quest Sanji is more than happy to go along for. He’d seen the pain in Nami’s eyes, though she was rather good at hiding it. He guesses it’s because they’re similar in this, the two of them adults with painful childhoods, the kind that leave more marks than they allow themselves to show.

Though the fight against Arlong had left them all with more bruises than they could count, it’s not until Drum Island that Sanji is truly and irrevocably damaged.

When he sees the snow falling, his brain yells _this will kill them, you have to save them_ and his body moves. He throws himself in front of the avalanche without a single thought spared to his own existence because he is not worthy of thought, not like them, not right now.

The pain he experiences once the snow crashes and throws him down the mountain is excruciating. He feels as if someone has reached into his spine and grabbed it with all their strength, twisting and crumpling every nerve he has. He feels death in his throat and in his lungs, oxygen dying and bursting and exploding inside his chest. His vision whites out as his head throbs in pain and he thinks —

He thinks if he dies, at least it will be for a good cause. At least his final living act will be useful.

Later, he wakes up on a lumpy mattress with a cold compress on his forehead and pain in every muscle of his body. The doctor tells him he’s an idiot who’s lucky to be alive and he’ll need to be on bed rest for the next two weeks if he wants to make a full recovery.

Sanji says, “Sure,” and it’s not three hours later before he’s trying to get up and finds that he can’t. Literally. His body won’t move, not without a wave of hurt washing over him. With pain comes nausea, which brings along the urge to vomit that he only manages to repress through sheer stubbornness.

It’s not until he’s tried to get up for the third time — and thrown up all over the floor — that he starts to panic.

When he was young, his family used to beat him up because he was, for all intents and purposes, useless. He was weak and kind and didn’t have a shred of royal pride in him. He couldn’t do the things they wanted, no matter how hard he tried.

“You’re a waste of oxygen”, his father often said.

Sanji thinks he would have believed him, wholly and fully, had it not been for his mother. In the darkest moments, when he was sure he was going to die, he would remember her and how happy she always was to see him.

How she would always smile and eat his food and say, soft and full of love, “you’re my sunshine. You’re perfect just the way you are. You’re wonderful, Sanji.”

And then his mother died and not long after, Sanji could no longer remember her voice. He still remembered what she used to say, but he couldn’t remember her voice, her specific cadence and tone, how lovely it always was, warm and happy and the only good thing in his world. He agonised over this for months, tearing himself apart, but no matter how much he tried the sound escaped him, as if it was being swallowed by the same darkness swallowing him.

So that’s how Sanji learned that it wasn’t enough to make one person happy. To survive you had to be useful and if you weren’t useful then you’d be crushed, sooner or later.

At the Baratie he learns that it’s possible to be useful and kind at the same time. That you can fight _and_ cook and have that be enough.

“They say food is the way to someone’s heart, but it’s more than that. Food is life,” Zeff used to say whenever he cooked for Sanji. “And you need to eat more, eggplant, if you don’t want to be a scrawny little thing all your life.”

So Sanji learns how to cook and he learns how to fight and he thinks he’s worthy of life, as long as he can do these things. As long as he can feed and protect others, he can live, which is why it’s rather upsetting when he shatters his back into a thousand pieces and learns he can no longer do either.

His first thought, well, his first thought is that his father was right, which is a shitty fucking thought to have considering Judge is the human embodiment of a turd. Sanji will be damned if he ever agrees with him on anything.

His second thought is that he’s gonna get kicked out of the crew, which is actually crueller than the first.

Sanji knows, on a purely rational level, that this can’t be true. Luffy is an idiot, but he is not cruel. He wouldn’t just toss someone out because they’re injured. He _wouldn’t._

 _He might find another cook though_ , his mind whispers, low and quiet and somehow more crushing than a blow to his back. Someone better than him, who doesn’t break so easily and spends half his time awake overthinking every little thing. Someone stronger, who got along with everyone else on the crew, and didn’t yell at people who stole his ingredients.

He could be replaced. Two weeks is a long time to go without a cook.

Sanji tries to get up for a fourth time and promptly gets kicked on the head by his doctor, of all fucking people, who tells him on no uncertain terms that if he tries to get up again she’s going to strap him to the bed and put a catheter where no catheters should ever go.

“Fine,” Sanji hisses while his world crumbles around him.

He will be kicked out. He will be replaced.

“You should tell Luffy that I’ll help him find another cook if he needs me. He should know that,” he says. He’s not able to meet the doctor’s eyes, not right now, but he’s pretty sure he’s being looked down with pity.

“Sure, I’ll tell him that,” the doctor says, though she sounds so sarcastic Sanji has no clue whether or not she’ll do it.

One would have thought he was used to disappointment, having faced it so much in his life, but still it hurts to have and to lose all over again. The pain is no lesser than it was all those years ago. If anything, it seems sharper now, like age has made him realise just how much heartbreak can hurt.

Sanji had always wanted a family. It was the one thing he craved the most as a little kid and he thought — well, he thought maybe he’d found one, with the Strawhats. He had hoped, at the very least.

Sleep doesn’t come easy that evening. Every so often he hears yelling from outside the castle, as well as an explosion or two, and it irks him to no end that he can’t be there. He thinks he spends most of the night awake, but he must close his eyes at some point, because when he opens them halfway through the night he finds Luffy sitting by his side.

The old hag must have talked to him after all.

Sanji observes Luffy in silence for a couple of minutes, his eyes memorising every detail, from the curve of his back to the slight drool pooling out of his mouth. He’s rather handsome, with the big eyes and the wild hair, though sleep makes him softer. Though he won’t move, his hands itch with the need to touch. He’s not sure why, but the more he looks at Luffy, the more imperative it becomes that he makes sure Luffy is real and he’s actually sitting by his bedside on what has to be the most uncomfortable chair on earth.

Is he coming to say goodbye? It seems so soon.

He’s looking at Luffy’s hands when a voice startles him out of his reverie. 

“You’re awake,” Luffy says. As he’s watching Luffy’s hands, they move and travel across the bed until they find Sanji’s own. Right. Something is definitely happening here. His voice is rather quiet, for Luffy standards anyway. There’s also almost an edge to it, although whether that’s Sanji imagining or not he can’t say.

“Have you been here for long?” he asks.

Luffy shrugs and leans a little closer as if he’s inspecting Sanji. “A couple of hours. The doctor said you needed to rest. She told me you broke your back on the avalanche protecting me and Nami.”

“Sounds about right.” A pause while Sanji ponders if it will be better to rip off the bandage quickly or to take his time. “Anything else?” he asks, proud of how his voice barely shakes.

“Yeah.” Luffy’s grip on his hands turns a few degrees tighter, the pain sharp enough that it filters through whatever cocktail of painkillers Sanji’s under. “She said you talked about us replacing you. What did she mean by that?”

Sanji looks away from Luffy, staring up at the ceiling as if the path to the One Piece is written on the stones there. “I’m on bed rest for at least two weeks. I’m not allowed to move, which means I can’t cook. Can’t fight either,” he explains.

“And?” Luffy asks and yeah, he definitely sounds pissed off.

“And what?” he bites back with all the self-preservation of a dim-witted fool who doesn’t know when to keep his mouth shut. Luffy’s influence, probably.

“Why would we have to get another cook? Me and Nami can cook–”

“You cannot cook–” Sanji tries to argue, but Luffy steamrolls over him.

“We can eat sandwiches until you’re all better. We’ll be fine. And we can fight for you while you’re down. That’s what being a pirate is all about. Fighting for what you believe in and for your friends,” Luffy says, his voice rising with every word until he’s pretty much shouting.

Sanji feels something akin to shame and happiness bloom across his chest, leaving his whole body ablaze. He clenches his fists, which somehow dissolves into him and Luffy holding hands, which is… a lot to deal with.

Luffy seems to be waiting for some kind of answer from him and when he doesn’t get it, he decides to get on the bed, tossing a leg over Sanji so he can settle above him. He then lifts Sanji’s hands up, pressing them both to the sides of Sanji’s head so he can lean forward and basically loom over him on all fours, until Sanji has no choice; either look at Luffy, or close his eyes.

“We’re not leaving you,” Luffy says, as strong and self-assured as always. Sanji stares up at him, biting down on his bottom lip.

He remembers when they first met and Luffy told him he was going to become the Pirate King. He said it with so much conviction that Sanji felt himself believing it before he even processed the words. This moment, somehow, feels similar. 

“You sure?” he asks because there is a voice inside his head that is needy, has always been, touch and love and everything starved. He knows himself to be greedy, to force Luffy into all of this, but he can’t help it.

“We’re not leaving you,” Luffy repeats. “And you’re not leaving us.”

Sanji nods, finding it hard to speak. Luffy’s gaze is heavy on him, full of scrutiny and that special brand of pissed off Luffy embodies like no one else. Sanji’s cheeks burn and if he sheds any tears, he blames it on his painkillers wearing off.

“Okay,” he says, pulling in a few trembling breaths.

After a couple of seconds of watching and being watched, Luffy must decide he’s happy with what he’s seeing, because he smiles and flops down to the side, lying between Sanji and the wall as if there’s nowhere else he’d rather be.

“You should go back to sleep, the doctor says the more you rest the sooner you’ll be good again. I’ll carry you back to the ship tomorrow,” Luffy tells him.

“We’re leaving already?” Sanji asks, surprised. Last he’d checked the island was still in big commotion.

“Yeah, I beat up the bad guys and already got us a doctor.”

“What? The old hag?” Sanji cringes. That woman looked like she would sell him to Satan for a cornchip.

“No,” Luffy laughs, squeezing Sanji’s arm. “The reindeer,” he adds, as if that explains anything.

Well, whatever, it’s not as if he’s in any state to argue. 

“Are you gonna sleep here?” Sanji asks after a couple of minutes. He can feel himself starting to doze off and he wants to know if Luffy will be there in the morning when he wakes up.

“Yes. Can I?” It’s very much like Luffy to state something and only ask if he can do it after the fact. Sanji finds himself grinning to the ceiling.

“Of course,” he says.

In the morning, Luffy lifts him on his back with steady hands, touching Sanji with more care than one would think possible for him. This is all ruined by him then tossing Sanji onto the sled when it turns out he still needs to convince their doctor to come with them, but still. At least there was an attempt.

And later, when they’re back on the ship, Luffy comes to find him in the men’s room with a tray of hot chocolate in his hands. He walks rather slowly, as if he’s afraid of spilling even a drop.

“Chopper made this. Said you’d feel better if you had it.”

There are two mugs on the tray. Sanji is not quite sure why he’s surprised when Luffy hands him one and takes the other for himself, sitting at the foot of Sanji’s mattress, but he feels a little ember of warmth spread through his chest anyway.

From there they sail to Alabasta, a journey that has them all in tears by the end, sorry to leave one of their own behind but understanding that sometimes, there are things you have to do that are bigger than yourself. Bigger than anyone. 

Though the first time he saves Luffy from drowning is at the Baratie, it is not, by any means of the imagination, the last. Luffy doesn’t have a death wish, but he does have an adventure wish, and it’s not uncommon for the two to come face to face.

The first time Sanji saves Luffy from drowning by giving him mouth to mouth is on Sky Island.

Sanji has just been electrocuted, but Luffy has just had a bomb explode right in front of his face and that takes priority since the blow is powerful enough to shoot him right into the river.

 _He’ll drown_ , Sanji thinks, his body moving without conscious input. He’s in the water before he can blink. Every so often his body spasms, residuals from the electrocution, and his vision is so blurry he can’t see anything more than a meter away.

 _Where is he_ , he curses, feeling his chest constrict as the last of his oxygen runs out.

 _Luffy_ , he prays as the back of his hand bumps into a human chest, cold to the touch and slightly rubbery.

He uses whatever reservoirs of strength he has left in his muscles to go _up, up, up,_ Luffy all but a dead weight.

_No. Shit. Don’t think about death, not right now._

When he finally gets the two of them on solid ground, he waits for Luffy to start coughing like he usually does, but nothing happens. Sanji looks around, starting to panic. He’s not sure where Usopp is and he could never find Chopper in time and Luffy is not fucking breathing. _Shit. Fuck_.

“Luffy, you fucker. _Luffy!_ ” Sanji shouts as his mind screams at him, every bit of him revolting in pain and anger.

He can’t die. He can’t die. He can’t fucking die.

Sanji opens Luffy’s mouth and pushes a lungful of air inside. He leans back to do a handful of chest compressions, pushing down as hard as he can before he goes in for another mouthful, and then more chest compressions, and then more air, on and on and on.

He’s not sure how long he does CPR for. His body aches, but he dismisses the pain like it’s nothing, years of practice making it easy for him to shut it off. He could be dying and he wouldn’t notice, not with Luffy lying in front of him without air in his lungs, not like this. His mind is singularly focused on the pace he has to maintain — and thank fuck Chopper thought to teach them basic care — and, weirdly enough, the colour of Luffy’s skin.

He is pale, too pale, as if all the world is losing all its colour. Sanji opens Luffy’s mouth and breathes into it until he has no air left to give. He knows without a shadow of a doubt that he would give more if he could, that he would take from himself to give to Luffy if he thought that might help his Captain. He would do anything to see him whole again.

He does not think about what this means.

It is on a third beat when Luffy finally coughs, expectorating water all over himself. Sanji cries. Just a little. It’s over before Luffy gets the chance to open his eyes, so it’s like he never did it, really. But he does cry because _holy shit, holy shit that was close._

“You fucking idiot,” Sanji whispers, laying his head on Luffy’s chest just for a moment, just until his heart calms down. “You absolute fucking moron.”

“You shouldn’t be insulting me. I’m your captain,” Luffy says. His throat sounds like it’s just been through the party of a lifetime, raspy and destroyed by all the water he must have inhaled.

“Don’t you ever do that again,” Sanji demands like he always does. He smacks Luffy in the leg when Luffy starts laughing.

“It’s okay. I’m okay,” he says.

“You could have drowned,” Sanji corrects. “You almost did.” 

Sanji closes his eyes and lays a small kiss on Luffy’s shirt, a stupid meaningless act, but it helps ground him, the cold and water pulling him back to reality.

Luffy is fine. He didn’t drown. He’s fine. They should get up soon and go find Usopp.

“I knew you’d save me, Sanji. You always do,” Luffy says, sounding certain and unwavering in that way he does that somehow always ends up being right, against all odds.

But with this — with this Luffy can’t be right.

“I can’t always be there,” he says, though he’s not sure why he’s arguing. So Luffy will stop taking so many stupid risks? Fat chance.

“But you are,” Luffy says. One of his hands finds Sanji’s face, stroking the cheek for a second before they slip to the back of Sanji’s neck, fingers intertwining with golden hair. Sanji breathes him in. There’s something about Luffy that is intoxicating. He felt it the very first time they met and he’s sure all the others did too or they wouldn’t be sailing with him today.

He’s not sure, however, if the others want to drown themselves in Luffy as he does. If they also want to taste him and touch him and look at him when it’s dark and cold and Luffy radiates all the warmth in the world. He’s not sure what it means for himself that he thinks like this.

(But this is a lie, of course. It’s a lie he tells himself so many times he almost believes it. It’s a lie that was almost true before he met Luffy and learned what it was to _want_ , to truly and irrevocably crave something with your whole body and mind. Sanji knows what this means. He’s heard stories and seen glimpses in alleyways and he knows but he refuses to think about it, he’s not like this, he refuses —)

“I’m okay,” Luffy repeats.

Sanji hums. “We need to go find Usopp.”

Luffy squeezes the back of his neck, gently, with more care than you’d think possible for him, then let's go.

“Thank you for saving me,” Luffy says. As Sanji sits up, his eyes are drawn towards Luffy’s mouth, which he can’t help but notice is a little slick, probably with water, but maybe also spit.

“I was hoping you wouldn’t make it a habit, but that was fruitless of me, wasn’t it?”

“Nothing you do could ever be fruitless,” Luffy replies, funny little man that he is. Sanji smacks him on the leg again before finally sitting up.

Sanji, for all he boasts and proclaims, doesn’t actually have a lot of experience. He’s kissed some people, fooled around a couple of times even, but never with anyone who stayed for longer than one night. Never with someone who mattered to him.

Does mouth to mouth even count as kissing?

The meaner part of him knows that it doesn’t. It’s a medical procedure. You do it to anyone who needs help regardless of gender or age. There are no emotions involved. But that doesn’t stop Sanji’s brain from later picking at it and extrapolating from what he remembers, like how soft Luffy’s lips were and how they would feel if they actually kissed, properly.

It’s been a couple of days since they left the Sky Island, and in the dead of night Sanji thinks and he wants and he wishes he didn’t, not like this, not for _him_ —

He has to push those thoughts away before they start to fester. He distracts himself like he always does, by arguing with Zoro and cooking elaborate and extravagant dishes for the crew.

The truth is, Sanji likes to cook Luffy special meals. Well, he likes to cook everyone special meals, even the stupid swordsman, because he enjoys making people happy with their favourite dishes, but it’s different with Luffy.

It’s always different with Luffy.

For the most part, Sanji only cooks during the day. He knows that if he started cooking at every odd hour, he would collapse from exhaustion much too often. This means that if any of his fellow crew members get hungry during the night, they just have to deal with it by eating one of the numerous snacks Sanji left for them in the special snack fridge he bought with his own money for this exact purpose (What? It’s not like he would ever leave anyone to starve).

Luffy is usually fine with this, but then there are other nights where he’ll crawl into Sanji’s bunk and shake his shoulder with enough strength to pull it from its socket. When Sanji finally wakes up, usually with a frown and a muttered _what the fuck_ , Luffy will open his eyes real wide like some kind of lovesick puppy and he’ll whisper, all soft and warm and far too close, “Sanji, I’m hungry.”

And the terrible thing — the awful, pathetic, inexplicable thing — is that Sanji acquiesces. 

He doesn’t know the precise reason why he does it. Maybe it’s because Luffy is his captain, or because he can’t stand the thought of someone going hungry. Or maybe just because it’s Luffy, and he’s asking, and Sanji would give him the world if he could.

It’s been almost a year since he accepted Luffy’s invitation to join his crew and he knows what it means, to feel like this, to want these things. He knows it’s not right, that it’s shameful and sick and wrong, for a man to want another man, but Sanji grew up drowning in shame. His earliest memories are of his father calling him _useless_ and his brothers beating him up. He knows he was born broken and though he can’t say he’s accepted this, he thinks he’s dealing with it as best as he can, all things considered.

At the end of the day, this thing he feels, this desire curling in his stomach — it’s just another weight he has to bear.

He thinks the Strawhats wouldn’t hate him for it, if they were to know. He thinks, but he is not sure. 

So Sanji doesn’t say anything, doesn’t stare at men the same way he stares at women, doesn’t tell them _I’m lying, I’m lying, I’m lying,_ but he does get up in the middle of the night to cook Luffy a pork loin steak and he thinks, sometimes, that the others know. That the looks they give him are more of understanding than pity.

Maybe, maybe not.

Luffy is fairly straight-forward when it comes to food, fighting and, well, just about everything really.

He is happy to eat whatever Sanji puts in front of him, which is good, because Sanji really can’t be arsed with fancy stuff at this hour. He cooks with his eyes half-closed, hands moving out of instinct and practice.

Though he isn’t making any noise, Sanji can sense Luffy behind him, watching him, waiting.

“Were the sandwiches I left for you not good enough?” Sanji asks, wanting to fill the silence.

“They were good, but I already ate them all and I’m still hungry. Sorry,” he says, sounding genuine.

Sanji hums and flips the steak on the skillet. “It’s alright. You shouldn’t apologise for being hungry.”

“Does it bother you that I wake you for food? Nami said it’s selfish and that I shouldn’t do it because you already go to bed later and wake up earlier than everyone else.”

“It doesn’t bother me,” Sanji promises me as he reaches for a plate.

“Really? How come?”

Sanji puts the steak on the table and takes a seat next to Luffy. “Because,” he says, as if that’s any explanation at all. He takes out a cigarette in favour of elaborating.

Luffy, of course, presses on. “Because?”

“Well I can’t leave you to starve, can I? You’re my captain.”

Luffy makes a low humming sound as if he’s considering Sanji’s answer. He takes a bite out of the steak that’s rather measured for him and would be three times the amount a normal human being would have. It’s as if he wants to take his time with his food. Sanji frowns. Luffy _never_ takes his time with food.

“Is that the whole reason why?” Luffy asks, taking another positively small bite.

“What other reasons could there be?” Sanji asks, biding his time as he tries to figure out what Luffy is playing at. His cigarette burns between his fingers, ashes falling on the table.

“I can think of some,” Luffy laughs. A hand finds its way to Sanji’s neck, thumb pressing against the jugular while the rest holds Sanji’s jaw, forcing him to look Luffy in the eye.

“Like what?” Sanji asks, feeling like he’s tempting fate and mercy and all the gods in the sky by letting himself lean in, until the two of them are only a few inches apart.

In lieu of answering, Luffy grins and closes the space between them, kissing Sanji on the lips with no hesitation, as if this is something they’ve done together a thousand times. Sanji finds himself kissing back out of instinct before his brain catches up to him and he freezes, his blood running cold.

“What are you doing?” he asks. He curls his fingers into fists as he fights the urge to push Luffy away — or maybe pull him closer, it’s rather hard to say. He hardly even notices the cigarette burning his skin, all of him so focused on the way Luffy is smiling against his lips. 

“I’m doing something I want.” Luffy presses another kiss to his mouth, his tongue peeking out for a moment before he draws back. “Is this something you want too?”

“We shouldn’t,” Sanji says, which doesn’t answer Luffy’s question. Luffy, obviously, notices too, and the hand around Sanji’s neck grips him just a fraction tighter, an inch closer.

“I don’t care about that,” he says, kissing the corner of Sanji’s mouth, the side of his nose, the high points of his cheekbones. “I just want to know if this is something you want. I think it is,” he adds. “I’ve seen you staring and I remember when you kissed me on Sky Island.”

“I gave you mouth to mouth. You weren’t breathing.”

“I know, but I could tell you wanted to do more.”

Sanji huffs, the sound loud in the otherwise quiet room. “When did you become so observant?” he asks, still unsure of what he really wants to say.

There is a part of him that is selfish. It is the same part that had him running from Germa’s castle all those years ago. The same part that was happy to take half of the old man’s food on the rock they got stranded on. There is a part of him that wants to live, no matter what, a desire for life so strong it curls within him like fire.

It is this same part that wants to grab hold of Luffy and never let go. It is a selfish want, he knows it so, and it’s grabbing him so tight right now he can hardly breathe.

“I’ve always been watching you. Couldn’t you tell?”

And Sanji thinks he can, if he allows himself to see what his brain has written off as foolish hope. All the smiles and the secret looks and the countless times Luffy has sought him out looking for company or food. He never dwelled on it, though. Figured it was foolish.

And now here they were.

“Oh, fuck it,” Sanji says, and with a strength that hardly feels his own, he grabs hold of Luffy’s waist and drags him in for another kiss — a proper one this time, the kind that leaves them both gasping for air when they finally part.

“So you do want this,” Luffy says, smiling at Sanji with all the warmth of a blazing sun.

“I do,” he confesses. “I really do.”

If it’s selfish and sick to have this, then so be it. They’re pirates. They are, by definition, meant to do the wrong thing. And how wrong could this be, when it feels like his whole body could burst from joy at the sound of Luffy’s laughter, pressed against his skin like it's a promise.

“Good,” Luffy replies. Neither of them say anything for the rest of the night, until it’s time for Sanji to get started on breakfast, and the sun has started to shine.

“You should go to bed, get some rest,” Sanji tells him.

“But you’re not going,” Luffy says, wrapping himself around Sanji’s back while Sanji gets started on a fifty-egg omelette.

“No, I have to cook.” It’s not easy to work with octopus Luffy holding onto him, but Sanji can handle it. If he’s honest, he has no desire to send Luffy away. He’s still not quite sure tonight really happened and he thinks he might believe he hallucinated it if Luffy goes.

“Then I’ll stay,” Luffy says. Sanji turns his head to the side just enough that Luffy can stretch his neck forward and kiss him, just like Sanji wanted him to.

“Alright,” he says, leaning back into Luffy for just a second before he goes back to cooking. Sometimes life can be as simple as that.

  


  


Art by the lovely talented amazing [Eutt1](https://twitter.com/Eutt1/status/1282687732532355074/photo/2) on twitter. Love you, babe!

**Author's Note:**

> big thank you [kite](https://skypiea.tumblr.com/) for the beta (go read their work if you haven't yet, it's brilliant).
> 
> if you'd like to chat about sanlu you can find me on [tumblr](https://gisewaaa.tumblr.com/post/620108513336868866/chapter-1-of-my-acesan-fic-is-out-5207w-and-teen) / [twitter](https://twitter.com/gisewaaa) @ gisewaaa


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